A world of my own
by duckmiso
Summary: What if Sirius Black was given the oprtunity to leave everything behind, before anything had even happened?


Disclaimer: The only characters I own are Maria, Bess, the grey haired guy and the crying girl. I also own the land behind the portal and most of the storyline, but nothing else.  
  
A/N: This is just a little something I wrote because I was bored and the idea came to me. Hope you like it!  
  
Sirius walked into the boy's dorm, snickering, and threw off the invisibility cloak.  
  
"HA! James, you should've seen her! It was hilarious!" James raised his eyebrows sceptically.  
  
"I'm glad you've had a good night, but I get the impression somebody else had a terrible one. What'd you do?"  
  
Sirius snickered again. "You know me all to well. One of these days I'll have to eliminate you. Anyway, can't a guy give flowers to his girlfriend?"  
  
"Not if he snickers to his best friend about it later! What kind of flowers?" James asked suspiciously.  
  
"Roses." Sirius answered innocently.  
  
"Uhuh. Right. What'd you put in them?"  
  
"How could you think so lowly of me?" Sirius tried to look hurt and failed miserably. He ended up grinning. "Spiders. Lots of spiders." James chuckled and slapped him on the back in congratulations.  
  
"You do realize you've lost her for good now." James stated. Sirius frowned.  
  
"Not necessarily. She's tolerant of my pranks. Remember that agreement we came up with when we started dating? I'm not expected to change my nature!" Sirius argued.  
  
"I still think you're going to have to have a very good apology to get out of this one." James sighed. Sirius didn't have a problem with understanding girls, specifically. His problem was understanding other people in general. James opened his mouth to say something else, but Sirius interrupted him.  
  
"Oh, you're probably right. You understand girls, I don't, and that's why you have a steady. But still! It's only spiders!" Sirius frowned. His Hufflepuff girlfriend, Bess, hated spiders and he knew it.  
  
"I'll be in the common room." Sirius threw over his shoulder as he walked out of the dorm, still frowning.  
  
"Hey, Maria's single, too!" James called after him.  
  
"Shut up!"  
  
James chuckled and lay back in his bed, satisfied with the response he'd gotten. Sirius had a hopeless crush on Maria at the moment. He always had to have a hopeless crush on somebody; it changed every couple of months.  
  
Meanwhile, in the common room -  
  
"Bess won't dump me! I'm the best thing that's ever happened to her." Sirius muttered, plunking down in front of the fireplace. This was where he usual went to sort out his thoughts by say them out loud when nobody would hear him. "I didn't know she was afraid of spiders until she let out that shriek." Sirius laughed. "Oh, it was bloody worth it! I don't care if she dumps me! Anyway, James said Maria's single. I'm gonna have to see if that's true,"  
  
"It's true." A very amused voice said from behind Sirius. "Why, Sirius! Were you intending to ask me out?" Sirius jumped out of his armchair and turned to face Maria.  
  
"Why M-maria! H-hello." Sirius stuttered. "Um, maybe?"  
  
Maria chuckled. "It's alright. You can tell me later. I have something more important to talk to you about." Suddenly she looked very serious. "Please, sit down." She took the chair across from his.  
  
"So what important topic did you want to talk about? Need help with your History of Magic homework?" Sirius said, seating himself again.  
  
"Yes, my history mark is abysmal but that's not what I wanted to talk to you about. I, well, damn! This is bloody difficult!" She swore. "Look, I'm just going to come strait out with it. In the future, things are going to get horribly messed up. You're going to end up with many years of misery and when you finally get out of that there isn't very much left that you really care about. But come with me and you don't have to be there to try to live through it. No misery, you'll have a great life." She looked at him, pleading evident in her expression.  
  
He looked at her in shock for a moment, and then burst out laughing. "Oh, that's just great! Did somebody put you up to this, or did you make it up yourself?"  
  
"I didn't make it up, I'm telling the truth." The resigned disappointment was evident in her voice.  
  
"Alright then, Maria. Tell me, what exactly happens?" Sirius chuckled.  
  
"James and Lily get married and have a son. Then Peter betrays their whereabouts to You-Know-Who, who kills Lily and James and attempts to kill their son but is defeated by him. You go after Peter, who tricks everyone into thinking you betrayed Lily and James and killed him, when you really didn't. You go to Azkaban for it." Her voice was unemotional as she said this, but her eyes were filled with sorrow. Sirius knew she wasn't lying. Somehow, he just knew. There was a moment of heavy silence before he spoke.  
  
"The only way I could escape something like that would be to go into a completely different world. And forget all my life here. Is that what you're suggesting?" He was still too numb with shock to express any real sorrow yet. Her only response to his question was a single nod. He let out a bark of cynical laughter.  
  
"I should have known. It's that or death, right? You're just some kind of deranged killer. Alright, I'll play along. If you're from another world and the only reason you came here was to retrieve me, which is what I'm going to say is the truth since it sounds dramatic, then why did you wait until my seventh year to offer this to me?"  
  
"Because I wanted you to have as much time here as possible. I could tell you were happy, so I just watched and waited, but you never seemed to have a moment where you wanted to be anywhere but here. So I've given up trying to catch you at the right moment. So are you coming or not?" Maria seemed more than a little exasperated with his behaviour.  
  
"Can you show me this other world? Open a portal I can look through or something?" Sirius was sure this would prove her wrong. She couldn't take him to another world. She was just crazy! Then he could go about convincing himself that nothing she'd said was true and carefully avoid all contact with her. However, it didn't quite work out that way.  
  
"Alright. But once I do you're going to have to make your decision quickly." He nodded, so she proceeded to open the portal. Maria reached her left hand out gently and it caught on something Sirius couldn't see. She gripped tightly and pulled. A small hole just big enough for a person to get through if they crouched appeared hanging in the very air of the common room. Through it Sirius could see a beautiful whitewashed castle type building. The portal apparently opened into a garden of sorts, full of plants he had never seen. A grey haired man was pacing in front of them and crowed with delight when he saw the portal and ran towards the white building, yelling something in another language as he went. Maria smiled. Sirius shook his head and backed away.  
  
"No. NO!!" He yelled. He had to accept it. Everything she said was true. He watched as he smiled slowly faded.  
  
"I take it you don't want to come." She said, obviously crushed. Everything she had been waiting for, all these years. Useless. But she was still glad she'd come.  
  
"I would never abandon my friends, even if they would abandon me." He stated angrily, thinking of Peter. "Please, don't ask me to."  
  
Maria nodded. "I'm sorry." A single tear spilled down her cheek. She stood still for a moment, then ran forward and rapped her arms around him, kissing him carefully. It was like an art, gentle and demanding. If she had asked him to come again, at that moment, he just might have agreed. But she didn't. "I'm really sorry Sirius." She apologized again as she stepped through the portal. Then She turned around and pointed her wand at him, sorrow evident in her eyes.  
  
"Obliviate!"  
  
*~*~*  
  
"Sirius!"  
  
"Huh? What?" Sirius jumped and fell off the couch. "Ow!" He looked up and saw James, Remus and Peter standing over him, snickering.  
  
"What're you still doing down here?" James asked, motioning to the sunlight streaming in the windows.  
  
"I guess I fell asleep when I was thinking." Sirius shrugged.  
  
"Well let's go for breakfast." Remus said eagerly, with Peter vigorously nodding his agreement. They had made it most of the way across the common room when a girl came bawling out of the dorms.  
  
"What happened?" Remus asked with concern, while James eyed Sirius with suspicion. What else had he done down here last night.  
  
"Maria! She ran away!" The girl shrieked.  
  
Sirius looked puzzled. "Maria who?" He asked.  
  
"You big crush of the month, is who!" Peter said, eyebrows raised. James looked disapproving.  
  
"Sirius, that isn't funny. She's missing! Don't joke about it."  
  
"No, James, really. Who is she?" Sirius asked, his puzzlement obvious. But James only shook his head and turn to help Remus comfort the girl. Sirius raised his eyes imploringly at Peter, who shrugged and join James and Remus. Sirius sighed and went down to breakfast on his own, feeling everyone was out to get him today. 


End file.
